Archives for 2016

In today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column I sift through The Blue Touch Paper, David Hare’s recently published memoir, for clues to his distinctive approach to political theater. Here’s an excerpt.

* * *

David Hare is back—though not on Broadway. “The Judas Kiss,” his 1998 play about the travails of Oscar Wilde, is being revived at Brooklyn’s BAM Harvey Theater in a West End transfer starring Rupert Everett that seems likely to be, at the very least, a succès d’estime, if only because the Obama administration’s ukase on transgender bathrooms in public schools has just rung the media bell. No doubt Mr. Hare is thrilled by the coincidence, since he’s a political artist through and through. Witness “The Blue Touch Paper,” his recently published memoir, in which he declares himself to have been a playwright who “was always happiest when I had a cause.”

Outside of a pair of favorable notices in the New York Times, “The Blue Touch Paper” received only modest attention when it came out in the U.S. in November. That stands to reason: Mr. Hare isn’t nearly as well known over here as he is in England. Several of his plays, most notably “The Judas Kiss,” “Plenty,” “Skylight” and “The Vertical Hour,” have been staged on Broadway, but none has been a hit. Yet his place in the annals of postwar drama is both secure and well deserved, not least because he is that rarity of rarities, a political playwright who is also a first-class artist.

To be sure, Mr. Hare occasionally lets his passions override his artistic judgment, as he did in 2006 with “Stuff Happens,” a coarse, smug documentary play about the Gulf War that shed no light on its subject. Far more often than not, though, he writes plays of ideas in which—like George Bernard Shaw, his eminent predecessor—he creates “villains” who are fully rounded creatures of flesh and blood….

“Using the theatre either to lecture or to parade your virtuous beliefs excludes the audience and leaves them with nothing to do,” he writes. “They hate you for it, because it insults their intelligence. Worse, it insults their experience of life. A good play is there not to close minds but to open them.”

Makes sense, right? Of course—to people who look to art to show them the world as it is. But to those for whom a play is not a potentially persuasive study of human character but a blunt instrument, Mr. Hare’s commonsense approach is anathema….

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

Laura Rook and Philip Earl Johnson in a scene from the Court Theatre’s 2013 Chicago revival of Skylight, directed by William Brown:

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

BROADWAY:
• An American in Paris (musical, G, too complex for small children, reviewed here)
• The Color Purple (musical, PG-13, some performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Eclipsed (drama, PG-13, Broadway remounting of off-Broadway production, closes June 19, original production reviewed here)
• Fully Committed (comedy, PG-13, closes July 24, reviewed here)
• Fun Home (serious musical, PG-13, some performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Hamilton (musical, PG-13, Broadway transfer of off-Broadway production, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• The King and I (musical, G, perfect for children with well-developed attention spans, reviewed here)
• Matilda (musical, G, closing Jan. 1, reviewed here)
• Les Misérables (musical, G, too long and complicated for young children, closes Sept. 4, reviewed here)
• On Your Feet! (jukebox musical, G, reviewed here)
• She Loves Me (musical, G, suitable for bright children capable of enjoying a love story, many performances sold out last week, closes July 10, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)

IN BALTIMORE:
• Death of a Salesman (drama, PG-13, closes June 12, reviewed here)
• A Streetcar Named Desire (drama, PG-13, closes June 12, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN CHICAGO:
• Mary Page Marlowe (drama, PG-13, closes June 5, reviewed here)

“Real artists are not nice people; all their best feelings go into their work, and life has the residue.”

W.H. Auden, letter to his brother (1927, quoted in Richard Davenport-Hines, Sex, Death and Punishment)

The original Benny Goodman Quartet plays “Avalon” on Timex All-Star Swing Festival, taped at Lincoln Center and originally telecast by NBC in 1972. Goodman plays clarinet, Lionel Hampton plays vibraphone, Teddy Wilson plays piano, and Gene Krupa plays drums. George Duvivier is on bass. The group is introduced by Doc Severinsen:

(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

“What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish. This is bad for everyone; the majority lose all genuine taste of their own, and the minority become cultural snobs.”

W.H. Auden, “The Poet & The City” (from The Dyer’s Hand)

Every performance of my Palm Beach Dramaworks production of Satchmo at the Waldorf is prefaced by a special turn-off-your-cellphones announcement that I wrote myself. It’s based on the model announcement that I published in The Wall Street Journal back in February. I figured I’d never get a better chance to see whether my ideas worked than my own production.

As of the evening of June 5, the announcement has been played before twenty-nine performances of Satchmo. No cellphones rang or were visibly used during twenty-five of those performances.

And what of the other four? A single cellphone rang—briefly—during both performances on May 21 and at the evening performance on May 22. In addition, one cellphone rang seven times during the May 14 matinée. The gods themselves inveigh in vain against stupidity! Nevertheless, twenty-five out of twenty-nine isn’t just not bad—it’s really, really good.

I’ll continue to monitor our stage-management performance reports and let you know whether my special announcement continues to work successfully. So far, though, it’s looking as though I’ve made a breakthrough, one that other theater companies might want to consider emulating.

* * *

For the text of my no-cellphones announcement, go here.

From 2006:

People are forever telling me that a work of art should be “criticized on its own terms.” (Mr. Parabasis, one of my favorite bloggers, got after me a few weeks ago on precisely this count.) Fine—but exactly what does that mean? To extend the metaphor, what if the particular breed of tulip you prefer to cultivate happens to smell like horse manure? Don’t I have a right to point that out, and to suggest that roses might possibly smell better?…

Read the whole thing here.

“The surest sign that a man has a genuine taste of his own is that he is uncertain of it.”

W.H. Auden, “Reading” (from The Dyer’s Hand)